


bacon in the soap

by user115 (Idonquixote)



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Drug Abuse, Implied/Referenced Underage Prostitution, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Some hurt/comfort, Species Swap, Zim adopts GIR, human zim's life is tough
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-31
Updated: 2018-03-31
Packaged: 2019-04-16 12:56:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14165319
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Idonquixote/pseuds/user115
Summary: The normal human life of Commander Zames, or the boy who called himself "Zim," from age 5 to 52, and everything bad and good in between.





	bacon in the soap

**Author's Note:**

> Just an experimental one-shot on Zim's life as a human, if we keep all his issues. I think it'd be both more depressing than his life as an Irken and also somehow better.

He’s 5 and eating crayons, not because they taste good. He just hates the food in the orphanage- the soup burns and the meat blinks. When they tell him to stop, he yells. He likes to kick and scream, not because there’s much to yell about, but because it feels good and he’s five. “That’s very good, dear,” Miss Miyuki says sometimes, when she’s tired, and the kids are tired, and he’s tired.

“Liar!” he says, “liar, liar!”

He’s tired when he draws, but he’s quiet and the adults think that’s good. It’s a purple house with two lovely parents. They’re lovely because they’re his parents. He remembers the white picket fence and his mom’s too-bright smile, and his dad’s one metal hand. They were always screaming.

But dad went boom, and mom jumped into the boom, and he lost the house. That’s what they tell him. He says they’re lying. His parents love him and wouldn’t do that. Then, he signs the picture, “Zim.”

“Zames, that’s not your name,” Miyuki says.

“Yes it is.”

And that’s it. Dad called him Zim because he could never really remember his name. And mom called him Zames when she was mad. So he’d rather be Zim. Zames blew up with the house, and Zim’s still here.

“Okay, Zim.”

* * *

He’s 8 and shorter than everyone who’s seven. His elbows are scraped and his legs are all banged up. He’s thin and dirty, and nobody cares. Everyone hates him because he’s annoying and selfish and a pest. And by now, he’s sure his house really did blow up.

He likes blowing things up. Firecrackers are his best friends, and it’s lovely to watch them fly into the sky. Then they come back and blow up Miss Miyuki’s Home For Children, and everyone really  _does_  hate him.

“You started a fire!” Miss Miyuki yells.

“But I put it out!” he says.

“You made them worse!”

“Worse?” He grins, front teeth missing. “Or better?”

* * *

He’s 10 and Larb’s his best friend. They both like cartoons and moose, or meese, or whatever it’s called. And Larb’s house is nice, clean, and filled with snacks. It’s everything Zim never knew he wanted.

And suddenly he sees himself the way the other kids at skool did- dirty, unwanted. Well, they’re wrong, because he’s Zim and he knows he’s amazing. The dirt can go though. 

At Spork’s Home for Unwanted Boys, he scrubs himself raw with the sponge. He wants to be clean, and soft, and wanted. Like Larb. Even though Larb’s kind of lanky, and there’s a nasty scab on his head. But he gets butterflies in his stomach whenever Larb says “hey” and that time, he slept over, and Larb held his hand.

Zim has a puppy-shaped sock he’s never shown anyone. His Mom made it for him. It doesn’t really have a name, and it’s his favorite thing in the whole world. So he’s going to give it to Larb. But when he does, Larb has a new group of friends, taller, richer, cleaner.

“Hey! Hey, Larb! Hey! Hey!” he calls, for what feels like hours.

“Okay, okay! What do you want!?”

“Zim was standing right there!”

Larb flushes and pulls him aside. “Stop calling yourself ‘Zim.’ It’s weird.”

And Larb looks at him like he’s nothing. Zim leaves and throws the sock away. He doesn’t need Larb or the sock, or anyone for that matter.

* * *

He’s 14 and sitting on stage. The principal rants at him, a montage playing on the projector. All the mistakes and (amazing) feats Zim’s pulled in middle skool. 

“You are the worst student-!”

He remembers the toilet incident, and the food fight, and the exploding frogs, and the exploding lockers, and the exploding alarm, and- Red and Purple are down there, cool as can be in their colored hoodies, and guffawing. He liked Red and Purple.

Hadn’t they said he was cool? That they liked seeing his stunts? Why else would he keep up with it? Everyone’s laughing and yelling at him. 

_“You’re cute,” Red had drawled that day in the boy’s bathroom, Zim’s mouth on his and both of them hidden in a stall._

“I’ve never had anyone fail every subject-!”

“Aww, look, he’s gonna cry!”

_“Here, you can have it, uh Zed or whatever,” Purple had said, offering him a half eaten donut because nobody sat with Zim at lunch and Purple was actually an ok guy._

“Look at him, so short!”

“Get outta here, Zim!”

“Shut up!” Zim cries, jumping up. “I’m amazing and anyone who doesn’t think so it just too dumb to see it!”

And teeth clenched, he leaves the stage and its jeers, old jeans and a ripped jacket rustling as he marches out. Zim doesn’t come back, not to skool, or to Miss Bitters’ Home for Troubled Boys.

* * *

He’s 17 and living in some junkie’s stolen car. He chews on gum and throws away the wrapper. He’s gotten quite good at chewing gum. If nothing else, no one can deny that Zim is pretty.

He’s too pretty for his own good and popping pills wherever he goes, and covered in bites and scratches. He’s in the backseat with some Brit named Tak (from the girls prep school or whatever) while a movie plays through the windshield, when he remembers Larb. And for a moment, wonders what happened to the amazing Zim.

“Hey, Zim, I’m not paying you to think. Kiss me or no deal. I haven’t had a good fuck in this bloody country since-”

“Uh huh, whatever.”

Then Tak’s half naked and yelling at him from the street as he drives off, listening to some 80s boy band and feeling as dirty as he was 10.

* * *

He’s 19 and running through the barricades. Civil War tears half the country apart, but it gives him a job and something to do. For some reason he can’t quite fathom, Zim loves the military. He’s barely tall enough to join and he weighs just right. 

Maybe it’s the explosions and the flashes. And the fact that they make him move. Move! Move! Move! With all the adrenaline, there’s no time to think, and it’s just as well. 

“Retreat! Retreat!” Commander Pok yells.

She’s shot down by Sergeant Slab Rankle from the other side. Zim stumbles. Someone’s yelling for him, a chubby guy covered in mud and a stinky uniform. Skoodge, or whatever. Zim throws Skoodge over his shoulder and runs on.

He slips past grenades and bullets. He doesn’t know how, but Tenn’s on his back too. Then there’s Bob. And Spleenk. And 777. He’s clipped by five bullets by the time they’re out of there. But Zim can’t fight with his bleeding legs, so they patch him up and send him back to a home he doesn’t have.

* * *

He’s 21 when 777 writes to him. 777 says a long time ago, they would have discharged Zim with an award, that they wouldn’t have cast him off just like that. But Zim has an award- a letter signed by Presidentman himself, framed and on the wall of his too-small apartment, which he shares with Bob.

777 has a wife and kids now. “She’s almost as pretty as you,” 777 writes. Maybe it’s a joke, but Zim doubts that. 

Zim spends most of his time watching TV and doping up. He gets scared when he has nothing to do, when he has no powder or pills. He’s shaky at night and he stays up washing dishes until his hands go raw. Bob’s a bus boy, and Zim’s still looking for a job.

No job is worthy of the amazing Zim. Even though he’s told nobody wants to hire a mentally ill veteran with a serious drug addiction, a juvie record, and no living relatives. They call him a war hero though, not that Bob thinks it’s much.

So in the end, Zim goes back to doing what he used to- being pretty and getting paid while getting screwed. Bob kicks him out for that.

* * *

He’s 23 and life’s just swell. LSD, cocaine, and whatever else gets his kicks is the way to go. Things are colorful and loud and Zim doesn’t have to think about a lot of things. He doesn’t think about the war of his parents or all those things he did wrong as a teen.

“I have never done anything wrong in my amazing Zim life because I am Zim,” is what his resume amounts to.

Just him and his bike and firecrackers following. He’s a frycook now and the smell of grease is burned into his skin. Sizz-Lorr fucking hates him, but Zim hates him too so it’s just fine. General Lorr had been on the other side of the war and Commander Zames came out winning, and now he’s losing. But one day his boss yells a little too loud, and everything gets a little too loud, and he’s shell shocked and everyone’s dirty and screaming, and so so dirty-

Zim wakes up in jail for the nth time, his face swollen and everything broken. He almost put everyone at the restaurant in the hospital, and he’s fired with a capital F. Nobody comes for him, he faces five years, and the worst part is, he’s got no drugs. So Zim just shivers and cries and denies everything he’s ever done wrong.

* * *

He’s 28 and he looks 17. And he lives in a box, sharing coco with his neighbor, Joe the hobo. It’s always cold and rainy and sometimes people piss on him. Zim hates everyone, but he’s just fine. There’s no work and no Sizz-Lorr, and nobody’s touching him or calling him “pretty Zimmy” and he’s not shaking from withdrawal. Just nicotine and beer now.

He ignores the filth and lives on leftover cheetos, so skinny that he weighs as much as he did 13. And there’s that nasty cough. And when sweet, sweet death almost gets him, Virooz, who’s actually Fitzoo-Menga, comes in.

“Commander Zames!” the man shouts, like he’s found a holy prophet.

Zim hasn’t heard that name in a long time. He can only say, “huh? eh? who are you?” when Virooz shakes his hand and shows him his impressively creepy collection of Commander Zames’ photographs, from childhood to adulthood. Fitzoo-Menga is his biggest (and ugliest) fan, and as much as it creeps him out, it feels nice to not be forgotten.

So Zim goes home with Virooz and shacks up in a billionaire’s mansion. The next few years are the worst and best.

* * *

He’s 32 and he still gets ID’d by liquor shop owners, even when he’s with Virooz. Fitzoo-Menga loves him, almost worships him, but he makes Zim feel like a doll, or a glorified action figure, or something that isn’t allowed to be anything but Commander Zames.

He attends all the glamorous parties with Virooz, drinks cocktails with him at night, lets Virooz groom his hair. There’s a V stitched to all his clothes, the fancy black tuxedo, his bow tie, even those shiny leather shoes. Virooz lets him drink all the good wine to his heart’s content. Anything Zames wants, Virooz gets.

Zim is a pet and he knows it. But is that so bad? He doesn’t know. It doesn’t feel right when Virooz touches him. Touches him. It doesn’t feel right when they- it doesn’t feel right that his world has nobody else.

And then, at one of those black tie parties, in a corner with the cocktail bar, Zim meets Skoodge. Short, stocky, and embarrassingly sloppy, Skoodge looks at him with recognition and says, “Commander! Remember me? Skoodge? You saved me back in 23!”

“No idea,” Zim says, “get out of my way.” And grabs another drink.

But he keeps on running into Skoodge afterwards. Skoodge talks to him. Skoodge listens to him. Skoodge knows him, knows him as Zim, not Zames, and actually cares what he thinks. 

“I like you,” Skoodge whispers once, when they’re hiding on the roof from Virooz, “I’ve always liked you.”

And then, once in the swimming pool, Zim thinks,  _Zim likes you too_.

Then, when Zim’s lying wasted on his bed, covered in bruises and Virooz’s scent, he texts Skoodge: “let’s go.”

? is the reply. “Do not question Zim!” he texts back. And then Zim’s stowing away in Skoodge’s car, back in his old military uniform, not a trace of Virooz’s doting on him anymore. 

* * *

He’s 35 and a half, still unsure what’s happened. Because Skoodge is good to him, and even though he’s had people he called friends in the past, this is the first time someone’s  _really_  been good to him. Skoodge isn’t rich like Virooz or handsome like Red or cool like Larb or grounded like 777, but he’s  _Skoodge_. He works hard and he’s considerate and kind.

And nobody’s ever been kind to Zim.

True, Skoodge is clumsy and kind of dumb and a little ugly, and Zim likes to remind him of all his flaws. But Zim loves him. He’s never really loved anyone before, but Skoodge is Skoodge. And Zim loves him.

He loves the deformed pancakes Skoodge makes in the morning, the way Skoodge gives him a wet kiss before leaving for work, those little coffee stains on Skoodge’s shirts. Zim can never wash those stains out, but he doesn’t really care. He’s-

“You were a kid, Zim,” Skoodge tells him one night, holding him close, “a kid with no one. I wish I’d been there. I wish someone helped you.”

He’s happy.

“Zim doesn’t care, stupid Skoodge,” he says, “Zim has you now.”

* * *

He’s 37 and he looks 19. That’s when his world falls apart. He hasn’t seen the rest of their platoon in about ten years, but they all stand there now as Skoodge’s casket is lowered into the ground. It’s raining and Zim doesn’t have an umbrella. Bob offers and Zim knocks it away.

Skoodge is dead, hit by a garbage truck, and it barely makes the news. 

“He was stupid,” is the only thing Zim can say in the eulogy.

Zim thinks he’s lived through the worst of his life. He’s wrong. Because nothing’s worse than this and the world goes black. He thinks he has a hole in him. And it’s never going to mend. He won’t let it.

* * *

He’s 38 and he missed his birthday. Zim jumps off a building and tells everyone he slipped. He breaks both legs and crushes half a skull. One eye’s ruined for good, but he can’t say he cares. 

Everything comes back after that- the flashes of war, that slow depression, every little breath and hurt he’s suffered as a child. 777 writes to him again, but Zim only glosses over the words. He doesn’t want to wake up, but he did. He doesn’t see Skoodge again, or his parents, or that little boy named Zames.

But before the morphine gets him, Zim doodles on his cast. It’s calming. 

* * *

He’s 45, looking just a day over 22, and on a motorbike too big for him. He straightens the red bomber jacket and slicks his hair. He’s back on nicotin and the occasional drink, but that’s it. Most of his days are spent in a room of paint; art’s not making him much, but it’s enough to get by and people are buying. He’s too old for all those pills. Zim glares at everyone and rants at every little thing. 

His favorite thing to do is drive in the rain and splash puddles on everyone nearby. He’s just  _that_  petty and bitter and hoping to die. And then he slams the brake just in time to avoid hitting a bump in the road, a child in bright green.

“Ruff! Ruff!” the little kid says, poking his tongue out. He’s in a terrible dog costume and Zim actually wants to run him over.

“I’s a dog!” the kid says, blue eyes bright.

“Uh, uh huh,” Zim says, unsure what to do. So he rides off, and screams when he turns around because the kid is right there behind him.

It turns out the kid’s name is Gerald, but he calls himself Gir, and he’s from Mister Elliot’s Home for Damaged Children. Gir’s a strange one, not quite right. He screams and laughs and does everything with thrice the vigor of another child. 

But Zim can’t keep away. Because Gir likes bouncing after him whenever Zim comes by. Sometimes Zim brings muffins and piggy toys and whatever it takes to shut the kid up. And when Gir starts crying in the middle of the road, Zim scoops him up and takes him for ice cream.

“Why are you so, ugh?” Zim asks him.

“I likes you!”

And maybe Zim likes him too.

* * *

He’s 49 and he takes Gir home. Nobody cares that a half blind veteran with no relatives, a history of depression, suicidal behavior, PTSD, drug abuse, physical assault, and prostitution, adopts Gerald. Zim knows why. They don’t want Gir. And he thinks about what Skoodge said.

He had been a child. The explosions came because he wanted attention and didn’t know how. There’d been no one to save him, no one to comfort him, no one to tell him he wasn’t wrong or dirty or broken in any which way.

And if Gir stayed there, he’d turn out the same. But he wouldn’t, because he had Zim, and Zim was amazing. 

“Why is there bacon in the soap?” Zim asks, poking at the plate of soapy waffles they made together.

“I made it myself!”

In the afternoon, he takes Gir for a spin on the bike. They feed ducks until Gir scares them away. Then they steal a box of girl scout cookies and climb up a tree. At night, Zim watches Gir watch TV and play with a box of crayons. And it’s really the happiest Zim’s ever been in a very long time. Nothing replaces Skoodge, but nothing replaces Gir.

And for the first time in maybe over twenty years, Zim wants to live. 

* * *

He’s 52 and he looks 25, living in an odd purple house with an odd little garden. He designed it and Gir helped paint. Sometimes he remembers- and he falls into those little spirals of dark. But then Zim sees Gir and he thinks he has everything he needs, at least.

His art’s doing good, he’s out of jail, sober, and he’s got a good job. But most of all, he has Gir. He has a family, someone he needs and who needs him. So Zim lives on. They might be broken, the two of them, but together, he knows they’re whole.

And then late one day, there’s a knock at his door. 

“Who dares disturb Zim!?” he cries, Gir already rushing to answer.

There’s a- person?- outside, a head shorter than Zim, who’s already short, his hair gelled back into a scythe and goggles over his too large eyes. But his skin is green and one gloved hand extends.

“Hello, human,” the person? says, his voice a little bit deep, “I am Dib, your new neighbor unit.”

Almost a year later, Zim’s riding his bike at lightning speed, Dib in front of him and Gir behind, that robot named GAZ flying above, all of them screaming for dear life as an alien named Chunk pursues. And bizarrely enough, they’re happy. Or at least, Zim is.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Hope that wasn't too out there.


End file.
